Songs From Different Times
by writingtoreachyou
Summary: How could you just disappear? Why didn't you talk to me? How do you walk away like that and not even look back? You just left. You left me. You didn't even say goodbye. You broke my heart. Elliot returns, no one knows why, but what he has to say won't be easy to hear for Olivia.
1. Flashbacks and Echoes

"You have _got_ to be kidding me Ed. Seriously, again? No, no I'm still en route…." she lied, with what should have been a troubling cool, reaching for the glass in front of her and taking an inaudible sip. "Of course, yeah, no problem."

Inhaling slowly, deliberately, closing her eyes and holding her breath Olivia lowered the phone from her ear and touched her finger lightly over the button that would put an end to the call and to their date night. When she peeled her eyes open again the bar was still there, and she was still sitting alone at a table in the corner of it. She liked this bar, it felt familiar. Some of those closest to her would probably have argued that it was a little too familiar to her, but she disagreed. Noah was with a sitter, it was the only night she hadn't spent with him that week. She had struck a perfectly commendable balance between her work and her personal life and she was a good mother.

"Another of the same, please."

"You still waiting on your date?" asked the amiable bar tender, and she trusted it was light chat rather than unwanted prying or pity.

"Ah, I….." softening her instinctive, automatic defensive stance Olivia smiled and relaxed her shoulders, "… he's working late. I'll catch him at home later. I'm calling this a nightcap now."

A while later Olivia stepped out into the night chill, reaching into her purse for her hat and gloves. It was getting colder; she wasn't looking forward to the following morning's early start. With Rollins and Carisi both on leave she was taking a more hands on approach than her usual running of the squad, and would be out working the case on the ground with Finn just like old times.

Just like old times.

"My God….." came a voice out of nowhere, and then two eyes that could cut glass were staring at her through the dusk "… you don't ever change."

Neither did he, she realised, standing mute and immobile on the sidewalk. Her hands at her side, palms wide in a sort of dropping motion, a release, a panicked need to abandon and bail out. Then slowly she clenched them, clenched her jaw, and clenched her heart.

"Why are you here?"

"Oh, well, I was hoping…." and then he realised he had no right to hope, to expect, to even really be there at all. "Should I just…."

"Go?" she asked, swallowing hard. She was no more sure of whether it was a question, a request, or an order than he was.

His eyes were still so painfully blue, but his face had softened. Those chiselled lines and cast iron jaw had tempered and he'd lost that intensity, that wanton fury that he tried so hard to bury in his intrinsic kindness. The yin and yang of him flooded back to her with the same intensity, the same wants, needs, desires. If she had been the same person she was the last time she had seen him then, four glasses of wine later, she wouldn't have been sure she could've helped herself.

She was not the same person.

"Liv…."

"Elliot I don't even know what to say to you right now." Rolling her shoulders she let them drop, chewing on her cheek before laughing bitterly, "Hell I don't know what to say to you at all."

"It's been a long time."

"Too long."

"I know, it really has, and it's crazy how…"

"No, no I'm sorry you misunderstand me…." clearing her throat and finding her voice Olivia stood tall, narrowing her gaze and flashing him that smile she usually reserved for patronising judges or hopeless attorneys, "… it has been **too long** Elliot. We are not doing this, not now, not ever."

"I…."

"You had a window, a grace period….." she continued pointedly, "…. but the window has closed and the grace is gone."

It took his breath away to realise he didn't know her anymore. She was every bit as beautiful, every inch as exquisite as the day he'd left but it was like she'd iced over. What once was fluid, bending, gentle, and soft had become solid and unflinching. There was a time where he'd fallen headlong and helpless into those warm brown eyes every time they'd looked his way. Now it was like there was nothing behind them but weariness, sadness, detached indifference and withholding.

"But I need to talk to you…."

"My God…" her voice cracked slightly, she cursed herself for giving him even that much, and then and she shook her head and laughed bitterly, "… you don't ever change."


	2. It's A Terrible Love I'm Walking With

"Everything okay Serg?"

"Fine..." said Olivia in a reply that was far from convincing to anyone, least of all Odafin Tutuola to whom she had been unable to lie for a long time. "Actually, I, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"I've just got to wondering lately if..."

"Liv?" he was worried now, he'd seen that look before, but in that moment couldn't quite place it. Something was wrong, and it went far beyond the case.

"Is anything ever actually over Fin?" she asked, giving him her eyes in a rare but beautiful moment of confiding.

Moving slowly from his seat he moved to her office door and shut it gently, careful not to let it slam and alert the rest of the squad. He had only gone in their briefly to ask her a question as to their changed direction on the case, and he knew Rollins if no one else would know something was wrong if the door audibly shut.

"What's going on?" he asked simply.

"It's nothing I'm just overtired. Noah had a bad night, and it's getting to me that we can't catch a break on this…." gesturing toward the papers and laptop in front of her she attempted to deflect. Fin was a good friend, the best, but she was not ready to share with him the events of the previous night.

"Just because you stopped looking, stopped listening, moved on…." his tone was gruff, hushed, empathetic, "… it's not over. You're just living with it."

"Yeah."

"A case can be over but we still wake up sweating."

"Yeah…"

"Lewis?"

"Maybe…" she lied, hating herself for doing so.

Maybe it wasn't entirely a lie; maybe it was all just cumulative. Maybe this sadness, this darkness, this dragging at her soul wasn't merely one event but the sum total of battle after battle with no sign of wars end.

"Talk to me, Liv?"

"One moment, one voice, one look and you're right back there. You think you're a million miles forward, a whole lifetime has passed and then in a heartbeat…." biting on her lip she smiled, to ease his discomfort rather than her own, "… it's happening all over again and everything is different and everything is exactly the same and nothing has changed and everything has changed and…."

"Not a single person in this squad, on the planet, would judge you for taking some time. Lewis would've been a career ender for most cops and…."

"Fin can I tell you something you won't want to hear?"

"Always."

"I saw a ghost last night."

"Jesus, Olivia, and you're only just telling us! We gotta get you a detail, you should stay home and …."

"No! Oh God, no, no….." horrified at where she'd sent his mind Olivia got up from her seat swiftly, moving around her desk and perching on its other side in front of him, "…. it was Elliot."

"Humph."

"What?"

"Jesus, Olivia, we gotta get you a detail…." he said coldly, flatly, his dark eyes narrowing, "… and you should stay home."

"I know what you're thinking and trust me it is _nothing_ I haven't already thought myself."

"What'd he say?"

"Not a lot."

"What did you say?"

"Even less."

"How you feelin' now?" he said, because, despite everything and all the oceans that had passed under the bridge Elliot Stabler had burned he knew she still cared deeply. "You doin' okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine it's…." folding her arms across her chest, unthinkingly protective, she flashed a quick smile, "… it was just a surprise to see him that's all."

"A surprise?" Liv it's been five years we're a little far past surprise."

"I know, I know and I don't want him here. What's done is done, it's in the past and I get that. We've all moved on and you can't just resurrect friendships you walked out on a half-decade ago."

"No, you can't. He made a choice and he's gotta live with that. Everyone needs to take some time after a head fuck like that of course they do, but you so much as pick up a phone or drop a text in five years…." sitting back in his chair Finn blew air dismissively through his lips, "… that's it we're done. Friendship null and void."

"I agree…." she inhaled, standing up straight and smoothing the lines of her suit jacket, "… yeah, yeah that's what I thought too."

"Just do one thing for me?" he asked, because he knew that so long as Elliot Stabler was alive and breathing it would never be game over as far as Olivia was concerned, no matter how angry she was.

"Sure?"

"Talk to me? Keep talking to me?"

"Not going to be necessary…." she breezed, replacing her dark rimmed glasses onto the bridge of her nose and asserting, "… because I'm not going to be talking to him."

"Oh yeah?"

"But thanks Fin, really, for listening, for being here…." this time her smile was genuine, wide and unhesitating, "… you know the door swings both ways right?"

"Copy that."

* * *

"Seriously?"

"I just need you to hear me out."

"And I just need you to leave, now, and stop loitering outside my building."

"Ten minutes, ten minutes to listen to what I have to say and then I'll go…." as he shrugged his shoulders the soft leather of his black jacket creaked and the hairs at the back of her neck lifted.

"Fine."

So they walked, side by side, along a street in Manhattan the way they had a thousand and one times before. This was different they realised; this was not a comfortable silence. The words unspoken that stood between them were almost unbearable they had been locked away so long.

"I guess the first thing I want to say, that I need to say…." they slowed a moment, finding a bench in the park a few blocks from Olivia's apartment. She set her purse on the floor and folded her arms.

"What?" she prompted, when it became too much to have him just stare at her.

"I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"For everything."

"Right."

"Liv…" he murmured, his teeth clenching as he looked over at her. It was agony, remembering her. Five years of forgetting and now standing there he couldn't understand, even for a minute, how he'd ever walked away in the first place.

"What do you want me to say?" she whispered as a tear escaping down one cheek which she swiftly brushed away. Snatched away, because he didn't deserve to see that, she couldn't stand for him to know how impossible she found fighting against letting him back in.

"I needed you to hear it that's all. I needed to apologise to you, unreservedly…." she had never known him like this, so open and honest. It unnerved her. Had he really changed? Grown even? Or was it something else.

"Well, I hear you…." she said carefully, choosing her words with caution, "…and I thank you. For saying it."

"I mean it."

"Okay then."

Reaching down to fetch her purse, oversized and overweight from all the work she hauled to and from the office alongside her laptop Olivia was just about to leave when Elliot blurted what which he could never take back.

"I love you."

"What?"

"I'm in….." the words were barely sounds, but his lips made the shapes, "… love with you."

"You bastard."

"Liv…."

"You insufferable bastard Elliot Stabler."

Rolling her eyes to stem hot tears she refused to cry yet Olivia turned away and headed at pace down the sidewalk. He was not allowed to this, she would not allow it.

"Liv wait, wait just slow down…."

"I hate you!" she cried, flinging her arm around to release his light grip on it as he attempted to slow her retreat.

"Please just don't…."

"I **hate** you."

"Okay." He said simply, holding up his hands and backing away. That was fair. He deserved it, he deserved worse.

"How dare you?" she shrugged, dropping her bag again with little regard for its expensive contents. Staggering backwards she held her hands either side of her face, running her fingers back through her hair and exclaiming in a shriek of fury. "How _dare_ you!"

"I'll go, I'll go I…." having got so far in, he wasn't sure how to get out, or even if he should. He wanted to stay, he wanted to stay forever, but he knew that was impossible. He hadn't meant for any of this.

"You have no idea how…." waiting for his eyes, waiting, deciding whether or not she trusted him with her words Olivia fell quiet a moment. What did it matter now? What did she have to lose? It was all lost already anyway when she'd woken up yesterday morning. "You have no idea how long I waited for you to say those words. You have no idea how long I _wanted_ you to say those words Elliot."

"I didn't know."

"Didn't you?" whether he was a liar or an idiot it mattered little now. "I'd have done anything. I'd have given anything. You have **no idea** what I would've given to have you say those three words to me…." lifting her eyes slowly, painfully, stoically up to meet his Olivia swallowed, "… and to look at me the way you are looking at me right now."

"I've always looked at you that way."

"Okay _now_ you should go." She laughed, a little desperately, as her breathing became too shallow to catch.

"If I could change…."

"You can't."

"If we could go back and… "

"We can't."

"I want you leave me alone."

"I will, okay, I will I just…."

"Why now? Why now after all…."

"I was a fool Olivia. I was blind and stupid and carried around with me this messed up sense of duty and obligation. Damn catholic guilt. I thought that was everything and…." shaking his head quickly at first, and then slowing, his blue eyes brimmed with the sudden hopelessness of it all and the words pinched, "… it wasn't everything. You were everything. You are everything. You always will be."

"You hurt me Elliot. You hurt me in a way that I didn't even think it was possible to be hurt. I can't imagine what it's like to lose a limb, but I lost a part of myself when you walked away. I lost equilibrium. I lost myself. I was lost. You can't even imagine how…."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't care."

"Liv…."

"No, no…." raising her hand, shaking a little at first and then uncurling her clenched fist to a firm palm in front of him she steadied, "… no, no you don't do that. You **do not** get to do that."

"Please?"

"Are you really that naïve?" she shrugged with marvelling disbelief, "That stupid?"

"I was lost too, Liv. I lost my way for the longest time. After the shooting I didn't know how to…." taking a moment, holding his breath, Elliot lifted a fist to his mouth and bit lightly on his knuckles, "… it all got really damn dark for a while."

"A while?" arching an eyebrow Olivia refused to give an inch.

"I didn't know what to do! I didn't know how to fix what was going on around me, inside me, because of me. I did the best I could. I did all I could. I…"

"You bailed on me, you bailed on us. You bailed on everything that we had built in 12 years of friendship without so much as picking up the damn phone!"

"I know that it…"

"You **broke** my **heart**."

The words clung to the air, drew it in along with Elliot's breath. Those four words said everything. They held the greatest tragedy, and the most beautiful truth. She had loved him. Whatever happened from here on out his feelings had not been one sided, and even if it was gone forever now, there had been a time when she had felt the same way he always had.

"I broke my own."

"You made that choice."

"I know you're angry and you have every right to…."

"Angry?" she balked, staring at him stupefied. "Angry? No, no Elliot this…." inhaling slowly she chewed lightly on the side of her lip and then smiled, "… this has gone so far past being angry with you."

"But…."

"I hate you."

"Okay."

"What?" and suddenly she was afraid, panicked, her eyes wide at the horror of his quick defeat.

"I'm gonna go now. I shouldn't have come. I've done more damage but that wasn't what I…." he was genuinely sorry, she knew suddenly, and fresh tears came, "…look if you ever…."

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket he pulled out a pen and scribbled on the back of an old ATM slip.

"El…." she choked, taking the slip and crushing it in her palm.

"Yeah?" he dared, one last time, to hope.

Curtain fall.

"Nothing, nothing just go."


	3. The Baggage We've Claimed Is Too Heavy

"You okay?"

"Why'd you keep asking me that?" prickled Olivia, sipping at her long since cold coffee and heaving a sigh. "I'm fine."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry…" she winced, knowing just how unfair she was being on him.

The dogged resilience that had once made Ed Tucker her nemesis, now kept him coming back to her breakfast table where any other man, any sensible man, would long since have walked away. Standing tall, hands braced at his hips, his crisp white polo shirt and clean blue jeans the epitome of everything she needed. He was good for her, so very good. He had returned the kind of emotional equilibrium to her life that she had thought lost forever.

"What's going on with you Olivia?"

"I'm going to take a day. I've already called in. I just need to take Noah somewhere and….." it wasn't an answer, worse than that it only provoked more questions in his mind, "… is that okay? Do you mind?"

"You don't want me along?"

"It's not that, I…." she was lying. She didn't want him there. Being around him only compounded the heaviness, the pressing weight compressing her brain and the hammering thundering in her ears.

"Promise me that you'll talk to someone, whatever 'this' is…." lifting his hand he gestured a round motioning in her direction, "… even if it isn't me?"

"That's cold."

"Huh!" he scoffed. She was impossible.

He was throwing everything he had at this, he had been for months. He wanted to be the rock; he wanted her to lean on him, to let him fix the brokenness he could see in her eyes. The strongest woman he had ever met, that exquisite doll he had secretly desired for years, bore cracks and imperfections that terrified him at close range. Olivia Benson terrified him and he was painfully aware that he had barely scratched the surface of her.

"I'm sorry Ed, truly I am. I'm fine, I just had a bad week and work and then a guy I used to know showed up and caught me a little off balance but I swear one day out with Noah and everything will be…."

"A guy you used to know?" he was jealous, painfully so, but he wasn't even sure quite why. She talked so calmly, flippant almost, but if this was the root of the change in her than it was so much more than that. She was coming undone at the seams and he was watching, helpless, feeling so impotent in the face of exquisite complexity and stubborn unwillingness to let anyone in.

"You have got to stop trying to fix me Ed."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"You're a good man…." she tried desperately not to sound patronising but it was futile. Even before, even before the past had become present again it hadn't been right.

She had tried so hard to convince herself that comfort, support, a solid shoulder, a warm pair of arms to run into was all that mattered. In her quietest moments at 4am, in the screaming intensity of Manhattan in rush hour, she fought desperately to stop herself wondering whether this was what it felt like to know a father's love.

"You should definitely take your day with Noah, it'll do you good. Fresh air, a break…." he nodded slowly, flashing a smile, "… then we can regroup."

"Okay."

"Olivia?" he asked, as she gathered up Noah's essentials day bag.

"Yeah?" she asked brightly, flashing a tired smile. She hadn't slept in days and he had to ask. He needed to know. It wasn't just a bad week, something had set these footsteps of fate in motion and there was a strange sense of the inevitable in the air.

"Can I ask? Dare I ask?" he shrugged, and she braced herself against the couch for what was coming. Laying a steadying hand against it she shrugged, feigning nonchalance, as he stepped off the cliff edge, "Only I went for a drink with an old buddy from IAB last night who said he'd an interesting meeting."

"Really?" perhaps she already knew where this was going. Worse, perhaps, she didn't much care.

"An ex-cop wanting to exorcize some demons, lay some ghosts to rest…."

"Did you want to ask me a question?" she didn't like games. He knew and he was testing her, and deploying his old tactics in this intimate setting left a nasty taste in her mouth. Narrowing her eyes she added tartly, "You clearly want to get something off your chest."

"The guy you used to know?"

"You've known this whole time."

"No, no I didn't figure it out until just now. I hadn't realised you knew he was back in town until you said what you just did, let alone…"

"Leave it alone Ed, please."

"I know what he was to you Olivia. I know what happened when Elliot Stabler left SVU and I know…"

"You don't know anything."

Neither did she, she realised with a sudden agony twisting at her gut. No one knew. Not one single person knew what happened when Elliot Stabler had left SVU and that was what hurt the most. It hurt, it hurt so much that even then all those years arguing in the middle of her living room with Ed Tucker it consumed her. It wasn't over, it wasn't a closed book; it wasn't even a finished chapter.

"Olivia? Liv? Hey?"

"I'm sorry, really. I didn't mean to keep anything from you it's just all….."

"He was your partner."

"Yeah, yeah he was my partner…." biting down so hard on her cheek she tasted a copper she just stared at him, not even knowing what else to say, or even if she could manage to find words.

Instead she invited him to join her at the park with Noah, something small, something easy and normal, a part of their routine. Ed stood guard at the bottom of the slide as Noah climbed the stairs, slid down, climbed the stairs, and repeated without tiring. As she watched her little boy play, carefree, oblivious to all the women she was Olivia inhaled deeply and nodded to herself. Reaching into her coat pocket she unfolded the battered telephone number and tapped out a short text message, "Café Barcomi, 7pm tomorrow – Liv x". Then, with a flutter in her stomach, she removed the 'x' and hit send.

* * *

"I've never been here before."

"No, no you wouldn't it's new…." prickled Olivia, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug and adding, "… only opened last year."

"I get that you want to punish me."

"What?" she wasn't very good at this, and she knew it.

She didn't like being this cold around him anymore than he did but it was all she knew now. There was a layer of ice so thick around her heart, built up over time, slowly encasing all the hurt and betrayal and pain and loss. There was a part of her that wanted desperately to let the way he was looking at her across the table sear through it, melt away the barricades, split a blueberry muffin and remark on the international weather report the way they used to. It's warm in Sydney, Baltic in Berlin. Did you read about that woman breeding snakes in the Bronx? Animal welfare confiscated over 400 of them yesterday.

"Liv?"

"Sorry….." shaking herself back into the present she flashed an unusually coy smile, "… miles away."

"Where?" he asked softly, taking a sip from his cup and smiling that lopsided half smile that would've made her want to weep if she wasn't so angry.

"I hate this, El."

"Talk to me."

"I don't know what to say."

"I know you're still mad and that's okay but…"

"No, no it's not just that. I mean….." taking a moment, the words catching in her throat, she shrugged, "… I _literally_ don't know what to say to you. I don't know where to start. I don't know if I even want to."

"I get that."

He was different, softer somehow, as though the rough edges had been rounded off and despite everything she felt comforted by it. He had lost his anger, just as she had found hers.

"I never thought that would happen to us. I used to know everything about you, more than I wanted to sometimes. I don't just mean what you had for breakfast or that you'd switched deodorant…." blinking away tears she was too stubborn to cry Olivia sighed sadly, "… I never thought I'd see the stranger in your eyes Elliot."

"I'm sorry….." he repeated, prepared to say it over and over again for the rest of his life if that's what it took, "… will you at least try to hear that? To feel it?"

"I needed you."

This time it was his turn to be lost for words. He knew a little of what had happened with William Lewis. He had not been entirely disconnected from the force over the years and a case of that nature, that level of trauma experienced by a cop as well thought of as Lieutenant Benson, did not escape public discourse.

"I needed you too."

"I was right there! I'm not the one that left!" she whispered with a muted hiss, her eyes ablaze with reignited fury. "How could you just disappear? Why didn't you talk to me?"

"I wanted to."

"How do you just walk away like that and not even look back Elliot? You just left. You left me. You didn't even say goodbye….." by God she still loved him, and it took her breath away how much. She wanted to throw the table at him. She wanted to throw the table away and hold him, tight, and never let go.

"And for that I will never forgive myself. I wasted years. I did. But so did you."

"What?"

"I needed you too, Liv. I was right there too. Same house in Queens, same cell number."

"I…." feeling a wash of sudden, unbearable regret Olivia set her coffee cup down a little harder than intended.

"You didn't call either."


	4. I Had A Dream About A Burning House

"I called Elliot, of course I called. I called so many times I hated myself for it."

"I didn't…." he sighed, this was hard.

This was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Lifting his eyes he held her gaze. This was sand through the hour glass, and it felt like it was slipping faster. This was a ticking clock, stealing more than one beat per second. He had to make it right. Time was running out.

"What?"

"I wasn't really meaning literally."

"You've become a man of metaphor?" she quipped, and for a fraction of a heartbeat the light rushed back in. She teased a smile from one upturned corner of her mouth and her eyes dared a fleeting twinkle.

"Two sides…." he said quietly, "… that's all I'm saying."

"It doesn't matter; none of it matters, not anymore. We are so far past all of that, don't you see?" she was tired, tired of it all. The same old conversations going around and around in her mind, the same feelings dragging at her heart and tethering her to a past long lost. "I spent what feels like a lifetime chasing after something that died with Jenna Fox.

"I didn't come here just to bring up old pain. I never meant to cause you any in the first place…." and in a bold, sweeping statement that could so easily have seemed flippant but that she felt sincerely in her bones he sighed, "… that was the worst of it all. The worst part, of all of it, was leaving you."

"Why'd you do it?"

"Honestly?" the truth was he could never be anything but completely honest with her, and that was the knife twisting in his gut at that moment. He was concealing, even now.

"I think honesty is all we have at this point." She said simply, and he couldn't help but flash another diffident smile. She was thawing. He didn't deserve it but there was a little light behind her eyes again when she looked at him, and he could feel her warmth returning.

"For a long time I thought what happened was the end. The end of everything, and don't get me wrong in a lot of ways it was. I've known a lot of violence in my life…." lifting his gaze, eyes painfully blue, he trusted her implicitly, "… and I've been the perpetrator of a lot of it."

"You were a Marine."

"I was an animal."

"El…."

He had shocked her. That took a lot. Where was that pride? Where was that unconditional faith and honour?

"I'm not making excuses. That's not what this is. I don't really know how to explain to you what happened, or what happened to me. I guess the wheels came off. The glue, well, I came unstuck. It wasn't just the shooting. I knew that, I wanted to be honest about it but somehow it just broke the dam….." shrugging his shoulders, saying that which had been so many years in the making he sighed, "… and I was drowning. For a long time I just let it happen. At first I didn't want to swim, and then when I finally did I didn't know which way to go to find the surface."

"What changed?"

Deliberately throwing his eyes to the counter, running them along the sandwiches and cakes, the coffee machines, his heart clenched. He couldn't tell her. Not yet.

"You only get one life, right?" he finally managed.

"Right."

"I've got enough regrets, I…."

"Elliot you don't…." closing her eyes, squeezing them tight as she attempted to process everything that was being said she opened them and shrugged, "… you have done **so much** good. What's going on here? You were a decorated career cop, your time in the Marines used to be everything to you."

"I was wrong."

"No!" her voice cracked, "No…." shaking her head she just took a moment, desperate to understand. "Semper fidelis…." she whispered, and needing to reach out to him in that moment despite it all she reached across the table and laid her palm flat between them, "… right? Always faithful? Always loyal? Don't lose that…."

"The only thing, the only person who ever deserved that from me…." lifting his hand, lowering it slowly toward the table and then snatching it back and covering his face Elliot choked, "… was you."

"Oh Elliot…." she sighed, a tear sliding silently down her cheek as she ducked her head and found his eyes, lifting his head and nodding slowly.

"I messed up."

"Yeah, yeah you did…." and suddenly he laughed, blue eyes glittering with tears but finding a smile through them.

"I lost everything Liv."

"What?" he meant it, this was not hyperbole and she could see the brokenness in his face.

"Cathy, the kids, my home, my sanity for a while….."

"Give me your hand."

"I…."

"Give it to me!" she demanded, pushing her palm in his direction.

Nodding slowly, with a gratitude and relief he had never known before, Elliot lay his hand in hers and felt his stomach drop when she wrapped her fingers around it. Tightly, like she wouldn't let go. Biting hard on his lip, his jaw locked around the avalanche threatening, he just stared at her. His eyes said everything she needed to hear.

"Can we keep talking?" she asked quietly, then clearing her voice, "Will you meet me here the same time tomorrow?"

"Of course, of course, I…."

"I don't know where my head is at Elliot. I don't know what I think or feel; I haven't even begun to process but…." still clutching his hand she gave him her first genuine smile, "… but I'll see you tomorrow."

For so long Elliot Stabler had been a face from her past, now here he was in her present and she wanted to keep him there. Despite everything, she could feel herself peeling back the layers of the onion. She was letting him back in, slowly, cautiously, conditionally; mindful of what had gone before.

* * *

"That's it! That's it, good job brave boy!"

"He's so funny."

"I'm sorry I was late…" breezed Olivia, having been more than a little tardy in meeting Ed and Noah at the park for their post work playdate. "Work is just never ending at the moment, but I get Rollins back tomorrow so it should ease a little."

"Who you are kidding?" he chuckled, knowing that one squad member returning from holiday wouldn't make a dent in Olivia's time.

She would give as much as it took, and that was unquantifiable. She wouldn't stop until every rapist in the city was behind bars, and all future rapes prevented. The dark shadow that this cast on their personal life did not go unnoticed by Tucker. She would stop for Noah, he saw that, daily. When would she stop for him?

"Ed if you want to call time on this then…."

"Are you really asking me that?" she was, and she wasn't entirely sure why.

From the moment Elliot had stepped, both feet, back into her life it was as though everything was suddenly thrown into question. Not just because of him, but because of something that he reawakened in her. An awareness of possibility, of hope, of something that she had thought lost forever.

It was as if she had been living in some sort of strange fog, a kind of semi blindness, and he had reopened her eyes to the person she had been before he left. Detective Benson was still in there somewhere. Whether or not she ever truly forgave him, whether or not they had a salvageable friendship let alone anything else, one thing was breathtakingly clear: she had felt more alive in the few stolen hours with him that week, than she had in five years without.

"No, yes, I don't know….." she hesitated a moment, stealing her watchful gaze from Noah just long enough to look Ed in the eye, "… is it fair to you? This?"

"You're talking about our relationship like it's the overtime roster, Olivia. Do you even care?" he smarted, a little taken aback by how quickly she had moved to the severing of ties. "Are you even in this at all?"

"Ed…."

"Say it."

"What?"

"Whatever it is that is killing you right now." Flat, monotone, already suspecting where this was headed Ed heaved a sigh. "You've seen him again haven't you? I should've known."

"It's not about him, Ed. Not really. I'm a mess, I'm…." laughing at herself, how pathetic she sounded, how cruel she was being Olivia covered her face with her hands and allowed her hair to fall over them. She wanted to hide. She wanted to hide until the screaming, the whirling, the storm raging in her head subsided. "Struggling."

"And you think that you'd be better off _without_ my being here?"

"Why do you make that sound like some kind of threat?" she bristled, not at all liking his tone. "I am trying to be fair here. I'm trying to explain to you that I'm really struggling to figure out what the hell is going on and I'm not sure that I can be what you need me to be right now."

"I don't need anything from you Olivia, beyond a willingness to try. Am I not doing everything you want? Am I not taking care of you and Noah? I'm giving everything to this thing and…."

"And that's the problem."

"You're not?"

"I don't _have_ everything to give to this, to you, right now."

"Do you have it to give to him?" was the obvious, painful; bitterly twisting question that Ed Tucker couldn't help but ask. Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his overcoat he buried his chin into his high collar and closed his eyes in weary defeat.

"I didn't ask for him to show up."

"Not really the point, is it?"

"Can you even try and understand?" she said, knowing just how much she was asking of him. "He was a bigger part of my life than…."

"I know, I know and I'm sorry that this is so hard for you. I get it, I think…." he was struggling too, because had witnessed it, that strange and beautiful dance that was Benson and Stabler in their heyday, "… because I saw it. I was there, don't forget."

"I'm not saying not ever Ed. It just wouldn't be fair to you to say forever right now. I'm not there, I'm not anywhere. My head, my heart….." she owed him so much, and if nothing else her honesty, "… it's all just so confused right now."

"Were you in love with him? Back then?" he caught her a little off guard with the direct manner in which he asked such a profound question. One she had barely dared to ask herself. "Did you ever fall out of love with him?"

"I loved him very much…." she said simply, quietly, truthfully, "… and what that meant, or what it was or could've been I don't know. I'm even less sure now than ever."

"But were you _in love_ with him?"

"We were never romantically involved if that's what you're asking. We were partners, he was married, he was my best friend…." locking his eyes, answering without shadow of doubt she spoke determinedly, "… we never crossed the line."

"Did you want to?"

They were over, he knew, her silence said it all. She had done the right thing, the fair thing; the irony of it all being that she had been more honest with him in that one interchange than she had with herself in the 12 years as Elliot Stabler's partner. With one look she broke Ed Tucker's heart because the answer they both realised, allowed to resonate in their bones, felt in every muscle and sinew in that moment: was yes.


	5. Holding On And Letting Go

"She stayed longer than she should have, that much I can say."

"It was that bad?"

"I've always been an angry guy…."

"Wow!" she was laughing, a little too loud, a slight snort in her throat. "No? I mean, are you kidding me?"

"Shut up."

"I just wanted to turn the lights out. Hit something, hit anything…." seeing Olivia's smile drain to a grey wash Elliot sat up in his seat and hurriedly rushed, "… oh God, my God no! No, not them. I never raised a finger to any one of them."

"I didn't really think…."

"I wouldn't have blamed you for questioning it."

"El…."

"I drank. I drank a lot. I disappeared, for days sometimes, once over three weeks. Cath had no idea if I was dead or alive. I think the truth of it was I was somewhere in between the two. I just couldn't find a way back from it all. It's like something just flipped a switch, I guess, after the shooting. Everything I was, everything I'd done, it all just sort of came into question and I couldn't make peace with any of it. I just got angrier and angrier and I didn't know what to do with that. Nothing got through to me. Not Cathy, not the kids, not winding up in St Mary's with no recollection of how I got there more times than once. I did a stint in rehab. I shook off a couple of minor charges."

"Oh Elliot…."

"I don't know what I'm more ashamed of. That I let it get that bad and I didn't have the strength to stop it, or that I still couldn't really tell you why. Why any of it. Not even now. I lost myself, I got so far out, so far gone. I genuinely didn't think I would ever get back to place where I could look myself in the mirror."

"What happened?" she asked; heart in throat. "What _did_ bring you back?"

"I…." he began, tapping his paper cup on the table and then flashing a hopeful smile, "… you know what, would it be okay if we took a walk? Just a couple of blocks? It's kinda warm in here…."

"Okay, okay sure, sure we can do that."

* * *

"What you looking at?"

"Honestly I don't know…." sighed Fin, shaking his head from side to side as he stood looking out the window beside the elevator shafts in the precinct, "… you ever hear a song on the radio? Just a couple of bars and you're right back in time. It's kind of freaky how real it feels."

"Yeah, yeah I've had that."

"You wanna listen to an old song?"

"What are you….." frowned Amanda Rollins, boots clicking on hard floor as she stalked over to the window and peered out, "… no! No way! Is that Elliot Stabler?"

"Yep, yes is it."

"The infamous…." pulling a face in jest Rollins soon realised that Fin was in no mood to joke around. "What? I mean I know they've got a sketchy kind of past but she's been mooning over him disappearing for as long as I've worked here. Maybe this has been a long time coming."

"Too long…." muttered Fin, before wondering, "… not long enough."

"Why you so grouchy?" shrugged Amanda, not willing to indulge Fin's seemingly unjustified mood. "I know you two are close but my advice? Take a wide perimeter on this one."

"You don't really get to have an opinion on something you don't know anything about Rollins."

"You're the one who got me over here…." offering a light shoulder squeeze Amanda softened slightly, gesturing down to the sidewalk below and shrugging, "… besides, does she look miserable to you?"

"No, no she doesn't….." said Fin under his breath. That was exactly what bothered him.

* * *

"Your choice?"

"Oh I dunno that's a tough call…." laughed Olivia softly, before reaching for the donut in Elliot's right hand and leaving him the one in his left, "… plain glaze today I think."

"You used to be a sucker for the chocolate sprinkles."

"Yeah well, things change." She shrugged, sinking her teeth into the sugary treat and pressing on with their walk. The polite gloss, the glaze on the donut, faltered slightly and the crushing reality started to set in. To bring them back from that Olivia proffered an olive branch of sorts; "I'm a mom now, I have to set an example."

"You realise that the sprinkles aren't really the deal breaker when we're comparing circular Krispy Kreme heart attacks but…." hesitating a moment, taking a beat and a deep breath of crisp New York November air Elliot jumped straight in, "…. but you're a mom. That's a big deal."

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"You don't have to….."

"I will though. I'll tell you his name is Noah and he's the sweetest, funniest, gentlest little boy. He's had a rough time but he's doing much better, he's doing great in fact. I'll tell you that adopting him is the single best thing I have ever done. It's been a long road, it was hard, really hard, and so many times I thought I….." licking sugar from her top lip Olivia felt the hurt creep back in, and shrugging sadly she met his eyes, "… and you **missed** it all, El."

"And I can't change that, only regret it every day."

"What do we do Elliot? What do I do?" turning on her heel beside a bench she sat down hard, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, "What am I supposed to do with all the anger and the resentment and the hurt? You left me."

"I know."

"You left me."

"I know….." he sighed, his heart breaking to see the confusion in her eyes.

"You left me without any explanation, anything I could use to make it okay that after all those years you were just gone. You were my best friend, you were the one person….."

"Liv…." slumping down beside her, a little too close, he reached a hand to her wrist and clutched it tight.

"The **one** person." She repeated, the last syllable catching in her throat. He wanted to hold her so badly in that moment, to take her in his arms and offer some comfort, any small semblance of comfort to ease that bitter disappointment written all over her face. "I have lost _so many people_ in my life…." she choked, tears sliding down both cheeks and pooling on the cupids bow of her lips, "… and I could handle it. I could handle losing all of them: but not you, **not** you."

"I shouldn't have come back…." he realised suddenly. A panic gripping his chest, clenching at it and stifling his breathing.

"What?" it was as if he had hit her so hard in the face her entire head was swivelling, turning around and around and making her dizzy to the point of nausea.

"It was selfish and wrong of me and I thought it was….." his behaviour was so off, so unlike anything she had ever seen before, he was shaking. He was visibly shaking. "I thought it was for you but it wasn't. It was for me. It was to help me, to make it easier for me. I made the wrong choice, a bad call. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Elliot? Elliot what the hell is wrong with you? What's going on?"

"I thought that I was fixing something."

"I…." she managed, grabbing for his coat sleeve when words entirely failed her.

"Now I realise I've just made it all so much worse….." he mumbled, rubbing a hand over the thin layer of hair on his head, "… and I shouldn't have come back."

"You're leaving?" she was angry now, fury that blurred her vision as she flew up from the bench and yelled after him "You're leaving? You sick son of a bitch!"

"I'm sorry…."

"What kind of fucked up game is this? You STOP! You come back here!" gasping, gulping for breath she stood alone once more. Hating him with every breath she was fighting to take. How dare he, how dare he do this to her again. How dare she have let him?

* * *

"Let me guess?"

"Don't Fin, just don't….." hissed Olivia, narrowing her eyes across her desk and shaking her head, "… today has been bad enough without you saying I told you so."

"What'd he do this time?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You need to."

"I do not."

"You breaking up with Tucker and crying in the bathroom says otherwise. You have a liquid lunch?"

"Fin!" she gasped, launching herself up from her desk and rushing to close the door. "What the hell are you playing at?"

"I don't like watching things I care about unravel, Liv, and you are coming undone at an alarming rate."

"I was not crying in the bathroom I was having an issue with my contacts that Rollins misinterpreted, and then evidently decided to share unnecessarily with you. I had a perfectly good crayfish salad for lunch and I take great offence at your flippant suggestions otherwise. More than that, I find it rude and disrespectful that you'd suggest…."

"Did I hit a nerve?" he asked, knowing just exactly how far he had to push before she dropped the defensive guard. "I've known you a long time Olivia Benson and there is only one asshole on the planet who gets you in this state. So I'll ask again. What'd he do this time?"

"Nothing, he did nothing. We had a couple of coffees, we talked, and now he's…." saying it aloud for the first time stung, she realised, "… well, he's gone again."

"What?"

"He left, he….." inhaling grimly she confessed, "… he evacuated. Is the only way to describe it I think, he fled, we were talking and he quite literally ran away."

"Huh?"

"We were talking, it was fine, and then he just….." and there was no other way to describe it she realised, with a baffled shrug, "… ran off."

"That makes no sense."

"I mean I think it speaks volumes as to all the reasons I should never have entertained his coming back in the first place. He's clearly not grown an inch since he left five years ago and is still every bit the coward that I had come to believe him to be so…."

"You're upset."

"I'm furious."

"Liv…." he softened now, realised that he had forcible ripped the band aid of a wound that was not only raw but still haemorrhaging.

"I'm fine, Fin. I'm fine."

"The hell you are."

"I will be fine…." she smiled, a little more convincingly, "… it's just been a strange week is all."

"What'd he say? When you talked? He have much to say for himself after all this time?" it pained Fin that, despite everything, he cared. His first loyalty was and would always be to Olivia, but he had just never quite been able to bring himself to truly dislike Elliot Stabler. He could not have explained why.

"Some, I guess. He's had a tough time, he's been through a lot." Cryptic and evasive though her answer may have seemed, it wasn't her place to share Elliot's business. She felt strangely protective of his vulnerability.

"He say why he came back?"

"To make amends I guess."

"Yeah, yeah but I mean why now. He's been in the dark and twistys for five years and then one day he just wakes up like, okay, today's the day, let's go pay Liv a visit."

"We didn't really get that far….." she sighed, realising that however angry she was the overarching emotion was concern. She couldn't answer Fin's question. Why had Elliot come back, and what had spooked him into leaving again so soon? It made no sense. At least it made even less sense than him having disappeared for so long in the first place.

"Humph."

"Look I'm going to fetch Rollins in here and talk through this afternoon before lunch. I want a clear plan before we hit the streets."

"Hey Liv?" he called, as she headed for the door. "You doin' okay? Honestly?"

"Honestly…." removing her hands from her pant pockets she rolled her shoulders.

"I'm here."

"I'm grateful…." she smiled, with a nodding acknowledgement of his unwavering friendship, "… I'll be right back."

"Fine, no worries, I'll sit tight."

Checking she had stepped out the room Fin leant forward and pushed at her cell phone's home screen, predictably finding a stream of unread messages. The number hadn't been saved to her phone, and so the digits were there for the taking. Various platitudes, apologies, fumbling attempts to explain himself were coming from Elliot but his response to them all did not come from Olivia.

 _"We need to talk. Meet me in the old bar tonight. Don't make this worse by not showing up – Tutuola."_

* * *

"I wish I could say it was good to see you."

"Then why'd you contact me?" asked Elliot, not about to be dangled along by Odafin Tutuola despite the circumstances surrounding their meeting at the back of a crowded bar. Barely audible amid the hum of rowdy Friday evening drinkers he shrugged, "Why'd you have me come here?"

"Because I'm not about to stand by and watch you break her heart…." pausing for a beat, swallowing hard on his drink Fin met Elliot's gaze, "….twice."

"None of your business Tutuola."

"Nah, nah I'm sorry Romeo but that line ain't gonna work anymore. Maybe once, maybe back then, but not anymore, not now. You being back here? You screwing up what's taken her _years_ to build? That's my business. That, my friend, is very much my business."

"I made a mistake in coming back here and once I had it wasn't….."

"Why _did_ you come back? Just for the thrill of it? Turn her life upside down? Shake it by the pant legs and then walk away again?" scoffing with poorly masked distain Fin added, "You get some sort of kick out of it? Power trippin' are you?"

"I honestly…."

"You're different."

"Huh?"

"You're acting like an ass, sure, you are, but you're not the same…." furrowing thick brows Fin searched Elliot's face, long and hard, "… what's your deal Stabler? What's going on?"

"I didn't, I mean, it took me by surprise…." chewing on the inside of his cheek Elliot realised that Fin was the best chance he had of damage limitation and so he tried to be as candid as possible, "… that it was still there."

"What was?"

"All of it."

"Jesus…"

"All of it."

Closing his eyes Fin held them shut. All of it, he sighed to himself, all of the fights and the late nights and the stolen glances and the agonizing sexual tension. He had witnessed it all and suddenly it was all coming flooding back. Benson and Stabler. Of course it was still there, it had never gone away; it probably never would.

"Wow…." he had been right, painfully so, to fear Elliot's return with the full force of his being. His reaction was every bit as devastating as Olivia's. "You two really are just each other's kryptonite aren't you? It'd be romantic if it wasn't so damn tragic."

"I was naïve, stupid, a total idiot I realise now. I've been exorcising some old ghosts, demons maybe. It's been a process, of coming to terms I guess, of letting things go…."

"This all part of some kind of therapy? Or?"

"I guess she was the one thing I was still holding onto. The one thing I couldn't quite let go."

"She was successfully letting go of you….." lied Fin, knowing in his gut it wasn't true but wanting to hurt Elliot so badly in that moment he didn't much care, "… till you jumped back in with your old size nines and fucked that right up."

"That was not my intention."

"Really?" asked Fin pointedly. "Besides, don't you have a wife? Kids? You found them pretty easy to let go of did you?"

"It's a complicated situation."

"Un-complicate it for me…." forced Fin, slamming his glass hard onto the table between them, "… won't you please?"

"It was selfish of me, it was, and I get that now. I knew that she'd moved on, I knew it and I thought it was real. I did, you gotta believe me. I thought I could come back without causing…."

"Carry on…."

"I knew she had a son. I knew she was dating Tucker and as much as I can't stand the guy I heard good things. I heard she was happy. After everything…." a fleeting moment told Fin that Elliot knew about William Lewis, "… she was happy. She'd moved on."

"She had….." and then, because no matter how mistrustful he was no denying the one consistently decent vein in Elliot's body had always been his love for Olivia, "… ish."

"I couldn't leave things the way they were. I couldn't have our last conversation be what it had been. I couldn't have her living out the rest of her life without knowing…." there was something in Elliot's demeanour, a chill in his voice, that set Fin on edge, "… how sorry I was. How sorry I am. I needed her forgiveness. I needed to atone for…."

"Atone?" plucking that one word Fin's heart stopped. A strange word, not Elliot's but his God's. Why now, why now, why now, the same phrase repeated over and over in Fin's mind.

"I guess I'd put it in a box. Me and her. I thought I could keep it locked up. I thought I could come here and make right without…."

"Falling in love with her all over again?" sighed Fin heavily, dropping his head into his hands and pinching a broad hand over his eyes. "Jesus, Stabler, you're dumber than even I realised."

"Screw you Tutuola, screw you."

"Hey, hey you don't get to…."

"You just bring me here to insult me? Did you? I'm trying to be honest!" flared Elliot, throwing the table back and thrusting himself up from it. "Yeah well go to hell. I don't have time for this crap!"

"Hey!"

"I don't have time for this crap!" clenched fists, his veins standing above his skin Elliot stood glued to the floor. Breathing heavy, chest rising and falling, he stared at Fin dead in the eye and half choked half cried, "I'm running out of time…."

"Bro…."

"I'm sick."

"What?" stunned for a moment Fin reached out, clasped his hand on Elliot's shoulder and shoved him back down into his seat. "Elliot?"

"I'm sick…." repeated Elliot, the gravity of it falling tonne after tonne on his shoulders as he crumpled onto the table and buried his head in his hands, "… and I couldn't die with her hating me."


	6. How Unfair It's Just Our Luck

"Holy shit, man."

"Scotch, double?"

"Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah buddy I'm gonna need you to keep 'em coming…" said Fin, throwing the bartender knowing eyes as Elliot sat slumped in the chair opposite. "Just keep 'em coming."

"Honest to God I just wanted to come back and make it right with her. Apologise, try and explain. I just couldn't leave it unfinished. I couldn't do that to her…." the shoulders of his black leather jacket squeaked as Elliot downed his drink in one and swallowed hard, "… and I couldn't leave without her forgiveness. If that's just damn selfish then I'm sorry. I'm a selfish bastard to the end."

"When you say sick? What are we…."

"Cancer, stage 4. They found it late. They tried a few things. Same old tired story…." no longer caring to recall the details of what had passed before the ceasefire Elliot sighed, "… but at this point I'm needing to skip past a few chapters. Get to writing the final one, you know?"

"No, no I don't but I'm listening." This was the single kindest thing Odafin Tutuola could have said to him in that moment, topped only by the addition of, "Tell me what I can do."

"I've messed up Fin and not for the first time. I shouldn't have come back here, I shouldn't have reopened the box. Never mind me for me but for her…."

"What did you expect?" was the question that Elliot had asked himself a thousand times and still genuinely had no answer for. "What'd you think would happen? You know what the two of you were. What you still would be if you hadn't walked away. What made you think she'd forgotten that any more than you clearly have?"

"Wishful thinking?" he offered, then with a pained laugh, "Self-delusion?"

"More important what do you expect to happen now? I'm guessing you didn't part on good terms. How're you gonna fix this? How are you going to fix this _for her_ Elliot?"

"I don't know."

"You gotta tell her."

"I know."

"You owe her that, if nothing else you owe her that."

"I know."

"How long are we talking?" asked Fin, pushing aside his own reactions to help a friend.

Elliot was his friend. He was an angry, selfish, stubborn asshole at times but he had goodness. He was a good man, underneath it all. What they had once been was still there too. Imperfect, challenging, fractious, but ultimately Fin cared for Elliot. Not just because of what he meant to Olivia, but because they were forever connected by whatever strange ties bound anyone who knew what it was to work in that squad room.

"Not long enough."

"Stabler?"

"I'll be lucky to see this time next year."

"Tell her."

"I…."

"You've already stolen five years from her and I actually think she might be brave or stupid enough to forgive you that….." locking Elliot's eyes Fin nodded gravely, "…. but taking this from her? Stealing whatever's left? She'd never get over that. You'd die with her hating you and she'd spent the rest of her life haunted."

"You're right, I know you are."

"Then don't do it to her…." said Fin firmly, "… it pains me beyond belief to say it Elliot but she deserves the chance to have you back in her life for however long you've got. If she doesn't want it, fine, but you don't get to make that call. Not this time."

* * *

"I can't think of anything I am less inclined to do."

"Liv…"

"Excuse me, I'll rephrase…." she had no idea why Fin was suddenly putting up such a fight on Elliot's behalf but Olivia remained poised, "… there is nothing I _want_ to do less than let him come here."

"I think you should."

"What's gotten into you anyway? You've never been an advocate for Elliot in your life and now you're here practically cuffing me to my desk."

"I know, I know and I get that it's all a little off. I do. He was an asshole then; he's been an asshole since he popped back up. I don't blame you for not wanting to talk to him and honestly there's a part of me that would rather he stayed the hell away from you."

"So why…." something was wrong, and she could sense it not just in the way that Elliot had behaved but in how Fin was being with her now. He had softened with regards Elliot, and that softening only ever happened in Fin with just cause. "What do you know right now that I don't?"

"Olivia I'm not asking you to trust him…." said Fin calmly, "… but I'm asking you to trust me."

"Okay."

"You need to hear what he has to say."

"Okay, okay fine, he can come see me."

* * *

"This better be good."

"Liv…."

"Whatever it is that you have to say that means I am here with you right now and not at home reading my son bedtime stories…." narrowing her eyes she hissed, "… better be _damn_ good, Stabler."

"I've made a lot of mistakes. Some big, some small, but none of them that I regret more than the way I've handled things with you."

"I am so done with this, all of this. I am so over your strange, maudlin, apologies that go around and around without ever really getting to the point. You left, you came back, and then you tried to leave again _is it_ . Now you're here in my office and you want…." shrugging coldly Olivia sighed, "… what exactly that you want from me Elliot? Because honestly I am done."

"I wanted to come back here and try to explain things to you. Try to offer something by way of an explanation of how things all went wrong, how long it took for me to even begin to start putting them right again. I could've stayed away, I could. Maybe that was the better choice but I couldn't. I couldn't leave stuff unsaid. I couldn't leave any doubt, any room for doubt, any doubt in your mind."

"Elliot what is going…."

"I was in love with you all along Olivia."

"What?" she asked, quite startled by his sudden candour.

"I'm not really sure when I realised it, but I know I fought against it. You were my best friend, you were everything, and I there was nothing that I wanted more than to love you the way I knew in my blood and bones I was born to but I couldn't. I was married and the kids and it was complicated and…."

"Where is all this coming from?"

"Maybe this isn't fair, maybe telling you all this now is just to ease my own sorry conscience. To free myself from all this and I'm dumping it on you only to just…."

"Elliot for the love of God!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry this is just harder than I…."

"What is it?" she asked, her voice a soft whisper as she searched his face. Brown eyes wide and deeply compassionate, seeing the look of utter loss and bewilderment etched in every line.

"I'm dying, Liv."

"What?" she felt cold suddenly, the world came in and out of focus and there was a strange rushing of white noise deafening her.

"I'm sick and they can't fix it and I can handle it, I can handle it all…." staring at her, desperately, as she leant back against the park railing, bending at the knee and folding to the cold concrete he felt tears fill his eyes, "… but I can't handle this…. I can't handle the way you're looking at me right now."

"I…." her mouth opened and made the shape but no sound emerged. Closing her jaw she swallowed hard, shaking her head steadily and fighting hard against a rush of blood to her head.

"I know I walked away, I messed up and wasted so much time, but I had to come back…." lowering his gaze he mumbled, "… to say goodbye."

* * *

"I need some time Elliot."

"That's funny."

"What?" she prickled, looking up from the washbasin in the precinct bathroom. Elliot stood in the doorway, arms folded and managing a pained smile.

"Funny is probably the wrong word."

"Probably!" she felt borderline hysterical.

"Time is the one thing I can't give you Liv."

"Oh my God…." it hit her in waves, creeping at first and then crashing into her and giving her that awful winded feeling of dread and helplessness. "Is this real? Is this really happening?"

"What can I do?" he asked, moving forward as she stood braced against the sink. Her head was dropped and her hair fell in her face.

"Leave me alone."

"I….."

"This isn't fair Elliot….." throwing her head back she took a giant gulp of air and turned to him, "… this is not **fair**!"

"I'm sorry. I know. I'm so sorry. I just didn't know what to…."

"I love you."

"Liv…."

"I loved you that whole time and then you left. I can't remember a time I wasn't in love with you. The sick irony of all of this is that I was probably in love with you all along as well. If only we'd known, huh?!"

"Don't do this, don't make it…."

"It's taken me five years to even learn to _pretend_ to have forgotten, to block it out, and then you come back and you make me feel it all again and now…."

Cut glass, a thin sheet of ice, Olivia felt like she was so close to losing her grip that she wanted to crawl out of her own skin: it just wasn't fair. She couldn't get away from that feeling, like Noah when he really, really wanted something and he wasn't allowed or he couldn't achieve it. It was just out of reach but you could see it, feel it, and imagine what it would be like.

She wanted to wake up a week ago and none of this have happened. Go on with her new life, with Noah and Ed Tucker in sweet obliviousness. In the space of a few days she had been given a glimpse of everything, and then had it all taken away again in the most bitter, tragic way imaginable.

Now she stood in a hopeless no man's land. Unable to forget, but unable to move forward either and crippled by the constant awareness that there was no way out of this without exquisite pain. She wanted to touch him, feel him, kiss him, spend every possible last moment with him and yet doing so would only make it harder in the end.

"Olivia…."

"No! No don't touch me…." recoiling, staggering on her boot heel she held up both palms in front of her body and shook her head vehemently side to side, "… don't you touch me." When a safe distance had been recouped she said "I never gave up hope. It was stupid and naïve and selfish maybe, but I didn't. I pretended to have, even to myself, because it was shameful. I slept with other men, knowing full well they'd never have me completely. I was ashamed that when I closed my eyes at night I still dreamt that one day you'd walk back into my life and…."

"I never gave up hope either, Liv."

"It doesn't matter now, does it?"

"It does, it does and…."

"After seventeen years of trying to fool each other and ourselves we're stood here. We're stood right here together and you love me and I love you, and we've finally admitted it, and there's nothing standing in the way except…." her face crumbling and the words rasping through tears Olivia couldn't continue.

"Can I…." moving forward Elliot offered his hands, his arms, his face so soft and filled with love and concern as he tried to hold her.

"No."

"I…"

"I can't do this. I can't lose you again; I don't have it in me. Let's just end this now."

"What?" he said, his arms dropping as his heart thundered into panic.

"I don't want to see you again…." shutting down, face grey and eyes glazed Olivia muttered, "… it's too hard."

"No, no Liv you…."

"Goodbye Elliot."

She left the bathroom, and he let her. Staring blankly, helplessly at the wall in front of him Elliot felt cold. The coldest he had ever known, as though his blood were no longer warming his body. She was right it wasn't fair, it wasn't right, but it was happening. This was beginning of the end; the hope was gone.


	7. I'm On Fire Like A Thousand Suns

"You heard from her?"

"Huh?"

"I mean I'll roll with it, but I know as well as you do that Liv isn't in DC. Not today and not for the rest of the week." Lowering her eyes to afford Fin a moment to compose his response Rollins added, a little softer, "She okay?"

"Not really."

"I won't ask….." said Amanda, allowing a small sigh, "… but if you need anything. Either of you."

"Thanks."

"Fin?"

"I thought you weren't gonna ask…." flashing a lopsided smile Fin rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh. "No, yes, I don't know. I get what you're asking. It's the same thing I've been asking myself over and over the past few days."

"Can she survive it?"

"She'll survive it. She's Liv, right?" said Fin, and then catching Amanda's eye he swallowed slowly. "What I'm wondering is what's gonna be left of her, you know? I just got this feeling, a feeling like he's what she's made of somehow. He's in her bones or something."

"Huh."

"She'll survive it for Noah, she will. I'm just not sure…." he felt sad, so very sad it steeped his veins, "… well I just get scared he'll take a piece of her with him is all."

"I guess that's loss, though, right?"

"She's had more loss than anyone one person deserves already but…." pausing a beat Fin said that which was still barely comprehensible, "…. Stabler?"

"Yeah."

"That's different, and I dunno Rollins. That I just don't know."

* * *

"You could've stayed away. You've been gone so long what difference would it have made?"

"I don't know how you want me to answer that question."

"Honestly."

"All the difference in the world…." said Elliot quietly, softly, without hesitation, "… to both of us I think."

"I was fine."

"Okay."

"I was happy, I had a life. Noah and I were settled."

"Were settled or were settling?" challenged Elliot. Her head shot up so fast he swallowed hard and regretted being so bold. They had always had that though, that relationship. There had been a time where he hadn't been afraid to say anything to her.

"That is rude and out of line."

"I apologise…. " he sighed.

"I just wish it wasn't so damn accurate."

"I'm sorry."

"Will you please, _please_ stop apologising?" she scoffed, closing her eyes and rubbing at her furrowed brow. "It's annoying. It's unnecessary. It's serving no real purpose at this point. You're sorry you left, you're sorry you came back…." shrugging, desperately Olivia laughed grimly, "… you're sorry you're dying."

"I…."

"You're dying…." she echoed. Trembling fingers traced her lips, as the words felt almost to burn. It wasn't possible, she couldn't bear it.

"What do you want me to do Olivia?" he asked directly, turning his body toward her and rounding his shoulders openly. "Because honest to God I'll do anything you want. I'll go, I'll stay, I'll say or be anything you want. Anything that helps. Anything that gets us someplace else than where we are right now because honestly I don't even know how to…."

And then she kissed him.

Her fingertips were lightly dancing on his cheek, warm and cold simultaneously. Her breath was warm on his face and her lips gentle but urging on his. Feeling his whole body relax, melt, give itself over to the moment he reached a hand to the nape of her neck and drew her in closer. Lips parting their tongues danced with an increasing hunger, a thirst, a burning and insatiable need. Coming together, pulling apart, finding each other again.

"Damn it."

"What?" he gasped, physically breathless, unable to earth himself from the heady heights at which he'd flown.

"I was hoping I'd been wrong…." she murmured, barely audible, her eyes locked with his, "… all these years."

"Liv…."

"I gotta go…."

"No!" he said, his voice raised enough to stop her in her tracks as she went to walk away.

"El…." she said under her breath, back still turned to him.

"Don't walk away."

"That's your speciality."

"So don't make the same mistake…." he said softly, moving to stand behind her and reaching a light hand to her shoulder, "… don't go."

As she turned around slowly, a shiver of anticipation set her spine tingling, and lifted the the hairs at the back of her neck. He stood motionless, unflinching as she lifted her hands to his chest, laying her palms flat against his shirt and started at him brown eyes unblinking. Breathing slow, shallow, she let her fingertips float up his chest, his neck, trace the line of his jaw and cup his face in hers.

"Are those tears Stabler?"

"Don't."

"What?"

"Make light of this….."

"I…." she floundered, her heart pounding and her blood coursing so fast through hot veins she felt quite light headed.

"Don't make this any less than it is….." the words fell from his mouth, loaded and dripping with the kind of raw agony and ecstasy that had always been their blessing and curse, "… we've waited long enough to get here. Haven't we?"

"I want it all Elliot."

"Humm?" he tested, daring to reach out and lay his hands on her hips. Drawing her body to his, just close enough that they were touching, he held her gaze.

"If we do this, for however _long_ we do this, it's all or nothing." Swallowing slowly, her voice trembling she insisted, "I'm done guessing, hiding, waiting. If you're here, and we're here, and we're doing this then…."

"We've both got a lot to say, a lot to talk about."

"You have no idea!" laughing at herself she rolled her eyes, lolled lightly against him and then needed more. Pressing her body into his she moved her hands to the nape of his neck and their faces so she could feel the warmth of his breath. "I'm still mad as hell Elliot. I'm furious. There aren't enough words. You've just about wasted 18 years of my life. You're ruined me for any other man. You've stitched yourself into every part of me in a way I can't ever undo."

"But?" he dared to hope, and he gave her that little boy smile and that devilish twinkle in bright blue eyes that still knocked her sideways.

"I don't want any other man, despite everything. I don't know if that makes me weak, or stupid, or a damn fool but I'm not sure I care anymore. I don't want to unstitch you….." shrugging softly she realised that which five years of therapy had failed to bring home, "… and the truth is I'm not sure I ever did."

"There's no one else, Liv. Not for me. Not now and if I'd been honest with myself all this time, there wasn't anyone else from the second you first rocked up in that squad room. When Cathy and I divorced two years ago…"

"Oh El…."

"She knew. She isn't angry. She knew nothing ever happened, she knew I was never unfaithful, but she knew. We're good friends still, she knows I'm here."

"She does?" asked Olivia, with genuine surprise but no sense of shock. Kathy Stabler had never struck her as unkind or lacking compassion.

"You asked me why I came back and there are a lot of answers. I've always wanted to, I've never stopped missing you or thinking about you. I've been laying a lot of demons to rest and I always knew I wanted to make right with you. I guess I was afraid. I guess the real reason to why now, is Cath."

"Yeah?"

"I think she said, something, something like….."

"Go on…." said Olivia softly, already knowing somehow, somewhere, deep down, what he was about to say.

"She makes you feel alive….." he chocked, his face crumbling slightly, "… ironic, huh?"

"She knew."

"Yeah, yeah she knew."

"It is not **fair** Elliot, it just….." closing her eyes, tears so hot they burned her eyes and then fell warm down her cheeks as she lent her forehead against his, "… it's not fair!"

"If we do this, for as long as we get to do this….." reaching his hands to her face he brushed away her tears with his thumbs and shrugged, "… I'm all yours now, Liv. For what it's worth, for all the good it'll do now."

"It was always worth everything to me El and you know it. You were always worth…."

"I will spend every second I've got left trying to make it all up to you….." kissing her forehead, her nose, he hesitated millimetres from her lips and smiled, "… say you'll let me? Please?"


End file.
